Cucuta is a border city between Colombia and Venezuela with complex dynamics due to its location and historical background, affected by drug trafficking, guerrilla warfare, and Venezuela's most recent multidimensional crisis. The city's structural plan (POT) is under review, trying to adapt to the local and global challenges: mass migration; social integration of communities in a post-conflict transition; an economic shift from a commercial dependency of the border into a self-productive region; the demand for housing and the occupation of high-risk areas, are some of the main aspects. These issues are more evident in the fringe areas of the city (edges), where informality is the main pattern of urban growth, with a later upgrade by the local government.
Then, how to achieve an inclusive urban development in the edges of a border city with rapid social and economic transformations?
This graduation project explores the process of urbanization in the edges of Cucuta and the implications of the border in the city's growth. The intention is to question the disparity between spatial planning and the spontaneous consolidation of the city's peripheries. In particular, this research focuses on one of these edges called 'El Rodeo', where more than 5,000 families have settled illegally during the last 20 years. Currently, there is a community development project for this area that involves multiple stakeholders, including the mayor's office. However, there is not a spatial strategy that envisions El Rodeo in the coming years.
Hopefully, the outcome of this work can be used as feedback for the planning office and inspire interventions in similar contexts.
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The thesis aims to explore the potentials and possibilities of open space landscapes with the goal of utilizing them in a new spatial landscape infrastructure device of integrative socio-spatial value. It will attempt to acknowledge the hidden qualities of open spaces, often overlooked due to responsibilities limited only to administrative borders and general lack of awareness. It will develop upon the hypothesis that units of the territory are abundant in natural, historical and cultural assets which, if systematically exploited through regional design framework, could empower a multi-purpose ‘regional park’ capable of slowing down, halting and even reversing social, natural and cultural deterioration processes imposed by rapid urbanization, climate change manifestations and human agency.
The study will be conducted within the south part of the Noord-Holland province, which stretches from the West border of Amsterdam to the coast of the North Sea and along the North Sea canal. It is a territory chosen for its programmatic complexity, natural resource capacities and the intricate relationship between the numerous natural ecosystems and urbanization. Furthermore, he study will attempt to advance in the utilization of the ‘regional park’ concept notions, translating them from theorical notions to applications, through spatial design principles. These spatial design actions will be tested within the targeted metropolitan context and will set base for wider possibilities of application within regions alike, where the open space condition is of urgent nature.
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Gated communities exist in most urbanized contexts around the world and San José, Costa Rica is not the exception. Following the discourse of insecurity and the claim of building community with-in the confinement of the gates, new developments are constructed with a peripheral wall. As gated communities diversify to all available markets they have self-segregated from the city.
The result is a city composed by clusters of enclaves separated by functions thus, car dependent and in detriment of the public space. Under this condition this thesis research will focus on possible spatial strategies to modify public spaces with the aim to allow for and facilitate social interactions in areas that are dominated by gated communities. Using as a starting point the understanding that public spaces mediate between the private spaces, thus having an important role in the confronting process of socio-spatial fragmentation and that the promotion of public spaces can address the imbalance manifested by the privatization of public spaces (Madanipour, 1999).
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